When the Morton family gathers for its 100th reunion today, the talk will no doubt turn to
George Washington’s tailor and the missing scissors.

Every family has its claim to fame. The Mortons of Morrow County have George Fluckey.

“Although we have no proof . . . of the following story, it is tradition that has been handed
down through the years,” family historians Lois Catlett and Sharon Kossieck, her daughter, write in
George Fluckey the Hessian Soldier and His Descendants, a 740-page genealogy that begins
with the clan’s most celebrated member.

As the story goes, Fluckey, born in Germany, was in his mid-20s when mercenaries kidnapped him,
brought him to New York and forced him to fight with British soldiers attempting to put down the
American Revolution. (About 30,000 Hessian mercenaries fought for the British in the war.)

Fluckey is said to have escaped his forced service by swimming across a stream at the Battle of
Trenton. He was shot in the heel while fleeing.

A girl on the opposite shore hid Fluckey in the chimney of an outside oven. (In another book
about Fluckey, she is called a spy for Washington.) Fluckey then joined the Continental Army and
served for two years under Gen. George Washington, enduring the harsh winter at Valley Forge.

Fluckey is said to have made two suits of clothes for the general while serving — hence the
title of George Washington’s tailor.

When the war ended, Fluckey went back and found Margaret Stotz, the girl who hid him in the
chimney. They were married in 1782.

After the war, he bought land in Pennsylvania before moving to Ohio at age 62, eventually
settling in Morrow County. He died there at age 96. His grave marker is in the Bethel Cemetery near
Cardington.

Walter Morton, a Delaware County retiree who is an organizer of the reunion, said he grew up
hearing about Fluckey’s exploits. He also grew up hearing that the tailor’s scissors remained in
the family until the early 20th century.

“I don’t think they ever figured out for sure what happened to them. They think they might have
gone to a museum.”

Morton said that because this reunion is being billed as the 100th (“I think they probably had a
lot of reunions before that but they just weren’t counting”), a lot of relatives from out of state
will attend. He is planning side trips from the reunion site (Marion Salem United Methodist Church
near Marion) to Fluckey’s grave.

Kossieck, who is Fluckey’s great-great-great-great-granddaughter, lives in Arizona and can’t
make it.

But she is expecting to hear from relatives interested in buying the last few copies of her
book. In the family, it’s a best-seller.